Religion Places to celebrate Eid al-Fitr in the Netherlands Demographics Estimated and forecasted Muslim population share in the Netherlands and Belgium Mariam Saleh.
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Corporate Account. Statista Accounts: Access All Statistics. Basic Account. Because of their spiritual role, Ayatollahs cannot be appointed by governments, but only by consensus of other Ayatollahs. Differences in Religious Organization The differences between Sunni and Shiite Islam are more than theological and historical.
They are embedded in the social and political structure of the Middle East. Sunnis and Shiites form distinct communities. Conversions from Shiism to Sunnism and vice versa are rare, and Sunnis and Shiites are expected to marry members of their own community. The vital moments of life-marriage, birth, and death-are commemorated within the framework of the rituals of the community. Members of each community learn about Islam within the traditions of their own faith, and under the guidance of their faith's religious teachers.
Despite these traditions, the political loyalties of Sunnis and Shiites are affected by their country of citizenship and nationality. In , Iran, a Shiite country whose language and culture are Farsi Persian , was invaded by Iraq, an Arab country with a Sunni leadership but a Shiite majority in the population.
Despite Iranian appeals, most Iraqi Shiites remained loyal to Iraq, performing military service when required during the Iran-Iraq war.
Both Sunni and Shiite Islam are organized in ways that reflect their beliefs. In view of the emphasis of mainstream Shiism on the role of the Imamate, it is not surprising that the Shiites have a more elaborate religious hierarchy than Sunni Muslims. With the exception of post-revolutionary Iran, the Shiite clergy has been more independent of the government than religious officials have been in Sunni Muslim countries.
Shiite religious officials have had less need to rely on secular governments for money to finance their activities, since they control substantial religious endowments. In the Shiite communities, the most important appointments to senior religious positions are made by Shiite religious officials, not by the state. In Sunni countries, in contrast, it is typical for governments to exercise control over the appointment of senior religious officials. These governments have also assumed the right to allocate large religious endowments through government ministries created for that purpose.
This makes high-ranking Sunni clergy more dependent on the government than their Shiite counterparts. Sunnis are also more open than Shiites to the idea that the leading of prayers and preaching can be done by lay persons without formal clerical training.
In view of the power of the Shiite clergy, it is not surprising that they play an important political role. Led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the clergy organized the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran in and turned the country into an Islamic Republic.
Shiite clergy have also been prominent in opposition movements in Iraq and Lebanon. Islamic Political Movements Both Shiite and Sunni Muslim political movements have as a primary objective the establishment of Islamic law as the sole basis of government. They reject secularism as an imported western idea, and are opposed to several kinds of social change that use the west as a model, such as changes in the status of women.
Political movements with a religious message have a popular appeal in many Muslim countries. This is partly because of the religious outlook of the people. But it is also because the leaders of these movements are addressing the political issues of the day.
One of the reasons for the fall of the Shah of Iran was that his secularizing policies alienated the religious establishment. In contrast, the monarchs of oil-rich Sunni Muslim countries have made a greater effort to keep their policies in line with religious sensitivities. Another very important reason for the fall of the Shah was the widespread discontent with his development policies favoring rich and westernized groups.
The Shah spent a great deal of the country's oil wealth on military and civilian projects thought by many to be poorly conceived. Iran was a more populous country than other oil-rich Middle Eastern states, so its oil wealth spread less widely among the people.
The effect of the Shah's westernizing development policies was to produce a new bourgeois class that was a target of hatred and resentment for poor people. In addition, like nationalist and leftist Iranian parties, the clergy vehemently attacked the Shah's ties to the West. In spite of their religious orientation, many of the issues addressed by the Islamic movements are the same political or social issues that concern secular politicians.
The movements attack government corruption and the gulf between rich and poor. In Iraq and Lebanon, where Shiite communities are poorer than the Sunni and Christian communities, resentment at perceived discrimination has also allowed Shiite movements to mobilize grassroots support.
Problems of corruption and poverty are also invoked by Sunni movements in countries such as Egypt and Algeria, though these movements have so far not been able to obtain support from high-level religious leaders of a stature comparable to the Ayatollah Khomeini before the Iranian revolution. The opposition to the West is derived from historic resentment in many parts of the Muslim world at western colonialism earlier this century.
The countries with the five highest Muslim populations are all in South and Southeast Asia or in sub-Saharan Africa, rather than the Middle East; and the countries with the three highest Christian populations are in the Americas rather than in the Middle East or Europe. Overall, there are about 2. That gap is expected to narrow by , when Pew Research Center projects there will be 3 billion Christians and nearly 3 billion Muslims.
Learn about Muslims and Islam through four short lessons delivered to your inbox every other day. Sign up now! The lists for Muslims and Christians are also expected to change in other ways. By , India is expected to supplant Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population.
The country with the highest Christian population, the United States, is expected to remain in that position in Lower down on the list, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are expected to be added, while Russia, Germany and China will fall out of the top Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that the United States is expected to remain the country with the highest Christian population in It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.
Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work.
President Michael Dimock explains why. The vast majority of U. Use this tool to compare the groups on some key topics and their demographics. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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